... and on the flip side...

After sharing some of the confusing behaviors we sometimes observe in Americans who live in Paris, I started thinking about how a few Parisians we've met view the USA.

In French literature, there is a rich and varied body of work devoted to cowboys and indians.  The books of le petit Nicholas (by Sempe-Goscinny) have several chapters devoted to the wild west.  French radio (FM105.1, in particular) plays a lot of American music.  Department stores and supermarkets pipe in all manner of music that was generated in the US.  American cinema fills the city.  Reading through the weekly l'officiel des spectacles, nearly half the publication is given to listing cinema events throughout the city.  Much of that has also been created in the US.



Many of the upper middle class working Parisians we have talked with have visited the US.  And of those who have visited, a surprising number of them have children who live and work in America.  All of them (so far) seem surprised that anyone from the US would choose to live in Paris.  They wonder what we see about living here that they don't.

In my worst possible French, I tell them that is appears la pelouse est toujours plus verte la.  Something about the greenness of grass and it being not where you are.

Some Parisians have a very clear, strong impression of America that we, as former residents, could only feel.  And that, from a remote, distant kind of sensation.

For example, someone observed that Americans are continually divided against themselves.  That person could not believe how racial minority Americans constantly "put each other down".  They were shocked they did not support each other, as they do in France.  Instead, they said, these groups seemed to express nothing but anger within the communities they live.

In another example, someone observed that American politics is more circus than reality.  They noted how moronic the whole play of position, power, and governance seems when viewed against the much more serious political backdrop of Europe.  Berlusconi not withstanding (a little inside joke, this).


In general, what the French seem to like about America are the wide open spaces.  More than a few people we've talked with have noted the same liking of American open space.  Some French appear to like working in the US more than in France.  Apparently, working for a corporation in France can be hell.  I don't say much about certain rollup or private equity companies in America.  I figure if they found a great job in the US and if it's better than what they could find here, more power to them.

It's increasingly obvious to me that the world we live in is not simply black and white, good and bad, right or wrong.  As Jean Paul Sartre's author of the forward to his "Being and Nothingness" says, there are as many valid points of view as there are viewers.

Luck and opportunity...

My wife trades emails with a childhood friend who also lives here in Europe.  When  Jude told her she felt lucky to be here, her friend pointed out that being able to live here actually comes as a result of hard work and dedication to following dreams.

Jude and I are working hard to integrate into French life and culture.  We are taking language lessons.  We shop the local open-air market three days a week.  We enjoy using exercising our limited communication skills to find out what's on the minds of people who were born and raised in Paris.  We visit places of interest and see things with wondering eye.  We can't imagine living our lives any other way.


As Jude says, if you don't by your lottery ticket, you stand no chance of being lucky enough to win.  "Luck" is expressed to those who put themselves in a position to take advantage of it.

I naively thought that if you were fortunate enough to live in Paris, that we must be of similar minds.  Boy, have I ever been wrong!

It is from this perspective that we can begin to see why the French roll their eyes when people begin the Standard American Pontification.  With feet set firm, and jaw clenched just so, the American Judgements On How Things Really Are And Need To Be all too often begin.  This does not work as a broad generalization.  Not every American ex-pat we meet Pontificates in the manner, but those who do certainly stand out.



Why would anyone carry arrogant assumptions about how "right" they are while coming from a place where the food system is broken?  Coming from a money milking health care system provides third-world class services?  Coming from a circus-style political system that diverts any reasonable discussion of what might actually benefit We The People?  Coming from a place where a financial system is so clearly slanted to making more money for the already rich?

We watch as the French become uneasy when people start to Explain Just How Wrong the French Way Of Doing Things is.  Could you imagine how these same Americans might feel if someone back home started to explain how much better things are in, say, Thailand, or Germany, or, heaven forefend, Mexico?  I'm sure they would be asked why they didn't just turn around and go back to where they come from.  You can almost read this response in the eyes of the French when confronted with Americans who have all the answers to all the world's, and most certainly, France's problems.


Such behavior leaves us, frankly, scratching our heads.  The certitude of being "right" has to be covering something.  Right?  Perhaps it covers incredible insecurities about the "rightness" of a failing system that people have no idea how to escape from?  Maybe it's that some ex-pats want a proscribed predefined Disney-esque fantasy of what it's like to live here?

The confused contrasts are sometimes startling.

Un anniversaire

This week, we celebrate six months of living in Paris, France.  In two weeks, we will celebrate the first year of my being laid off from work in the USA.

I was hoping to be able to retire gracefully out of my job as a software engineering program manager.  I had contributed in several important areas to the company's ability to generate $3BILLION over ten years.  I had helped build the foundation that enabled another $500MILLION over ten years.  I was good at what I did.

Alas, locking horns with the president of the company (quite inadvertently on my part, I can assure you) put paid to any hope of a graceful retirement.  Instead, I was invited to endure the worst week of my professional career in an all too public manner.  The president's complete mis-use of the Toyota Way made his real intentions clear.

To receive any severance (which itself was severely reduced from a layoff just a few months prior) I was to sign a document that said I would not criticize the company, nor would I ever apply for a job with that company in the future.  The president of the company had a huge axe to grind and used it to reduce head-count that sent a message that no one was to disagree with him ever again.  Such is the nature of working for asset stripping roll-up companies or private equity firms.

A colleague had talked for years about stockpiling "go to hell" money.  We preferred to think of it as prudent savings against the day I would no longer work.  Either way, Jude and I did our best to save what we could.

To make the move to France we needed to sell the house.  So coming up with enough "go to hell" money was not an easy task.  Or so it seemed.  It was then that our home sold in a week.   In the middle of a severely "down" market.  In the middle of winter.  To close in 30 days.  We needed to rent-back our former home to ensure our French visas arrived in time for our departure.

So many pieces of our move fell effortlessly into place that we began to think our leaving was somehow pre-ordained.

When we look back at our last years in the US, we can see how our lifestyle had evolved.  We lived "close to the earth" and voted continually to express what was valuable to us in the way we spent our money, in the topics we researched and shared with others, and in the way we "walked our talk".


We drove a Prius.  Jude volunteered at the local organic food coop.  I rode public transportation to-from work.  During spring/summer/fall, I would ride my bike downtown to catch the train out to work, and then reverse this coming home.  We frequented local restaurants (not fast food, nor any food-chain type of places).  We put our money in a credit union.  We lived simply (by US standards).

Coming to Paris, I see our values have changed only slightly.

We no longer own an automobile.  We walk all over town and use public transportation to get around when we don't want to alk.  We use the rail system to visit the countryside and the high-speed TGV to visit other countries.  We buy our food from local markets.  We research which bistros, brasseries, and restaurants still run a real kitchen (as opposed to places that nuke prepackaged meals from Rungis).  We enjoy visiting with merchants in our open-air marche.   We enjoy taking language lessons at a local small privately run school.  We drink organic wines and beer.  We buy our art from local artists (and not that stuff that is cranked out in China, but sold in Paris as if it were painted here).  We live in a very small (by US standards) apartment.  Our alarm clock is sometimes a loud singing black bird instead of an alarm clock.  We watch as doves raise their young just outside our back window.

We don't take up much space.  We continue to live simply.  We are incredibly happy.

It's time for a bit of champagne.

Les journees...

Friends from England suggested we meet outside Paris one day as they visited family and took their leisure by wandering about the French countryside.  We met in Chartres at the cathedral.

 A view of the famous face of Chartres...

Jude and I had never been to Chartres.  A little research by using The Force (ie: Google) revealed some interesting properties about the cathedral there and we looked forward to seeing the village and visiting with our Recently Engaged to be Married friends.  I owed him a beer, in the least, for the kind gift of a steampunk book he felt I need to read.  "Dancers at the Edge of Time" awaits my attentions.  I need to finish Antonia Fraser's "Marie Antoinette" first.

 The blue color recipe was, until recently, lost...

Jami, of Jami's Jam Fame, will be coming to see us in November.  In preparation, Jude and I visited the Gare du Nord to buy rail tickets to Italy.  After a few days kicking around Paris, we'll be taking the TGV and visiting the Cradle of the Renaissance.  The exercise of buying tickets showed us how we could best acquire les billets for Chartres.  This time we visited the Gare du Montparnasse.

Rail travel here is Right Reasonable to my way of thinking.  One way first class tickets direct to Milan can be had for much less than 75Euros each if you plan ahead.  One way tickets to Chartres were less than 18Euros each.  It's not like you're traveling small distances, either.  No longer owning une voiture and no longer paying for l'assurance and maintenance and l'essance and visits to the tire dealer has freed us up to trade those costs for nearly absolute freedom to travel about the countryside for next to nothing.

 Well carved stone...

Chartres, as you have have already visited certainly can attest to, is an incredible place.  The cathedral sits on top of an ancient dolmen.  The stained glass is world renowned, and for good reason.  The stone carvings are not to be missed.  The history that speculates the Knights Templar financed the construction of the cathedral is quite interesting to consider.  Bien entendu, our Friends from England were a joy to visit with.

After a nice lunch, we wandered over to the ticket counter to buy our way into the crypt.  We learned that guided tours (the only way you can gain access, I guess) on this day were gratuite.  Free is a very good price.  So down we went to listen to a Great Lecture in French as we wandered the east end of the crypt that is located under the nave.  I casually leaned against the old Roman Wall as our Lecturer Extraordinaire described the Carolingian wall that was situated behind him.  He shared with us some history behind the ancient Celtic/Druidic well that is found there.  I nodded sagely as he lectured, leading our friends to comment that we must know more French than we were letting on.  We had a Good Laugh.

 Under restoration, but still incredibly beautiful...

Jude said the price of the crypt entry (as in free) had to do with the fact that weekend was les journees du Patrimoine.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I didn't really believe her until we were back at our apartment that evening.  Using The Force confirmed what my wife said earlier that day.  I knew we were late to plan any serious visits around Paris for le demache, tomorrow Sunday.  So I looked for "interesting" sites that might not have the hords of Knowledge Seekers that the major attractions usually draw.  Several years ago we regarded the huge lines of Knowledge Seekers as they waited to gain entry to Usually Closed to Public Places all over the city.

This year we would do the best we could.

What we came up with was a Two Part plan.  First, we would visit l'hopital Saint Louis and their Musée des Moulages Dermatologiques.  Second, we would make our way over the Serbian Ambassador's residence that was located literally around the corner from our Parisian Point of Entry Residence over in the 16th.

 Saint Louis helping cure the sick...

The Musee was, how shall we say?, "interesting" indeed.  The skin disease adoring public is disallowed from taking photos.  It's a shame, actually, as there were some pretty incredible skin conditions on display.  Plaster casts were carefully made of various diseases starting over 400 years ago.  These casts were then used as the basis of the medical displays.  I guess one should be strong of heart and spirit to actually say they enjoy seeing such things, but I found it amazing.

The Serbian Ambassador's residence was something else entirely.  Shortly after we first arrived, Jude and I had looked from a distance at the incredible gold guilt, rich art, and fabulous tapestries and wondered what it might be like inside, up close, and personal.  This was our opportunity and it was well taken.  Words escape me to describe the opulence of the decor and vastness of the spaces.  The view of la tour Eiffel from the courtyard was stunning.

This ranked as One Stellar Weekend!  We would need several day to recover from such a great adventurous weekend.

Un mystère...

Summer this year has been short and only moderately hot.  We experienced three days of chaleur that kept us indoors.  The rest of the time was spent battling mosquitoes trying to gain entry to our apartment to steal some blood.

For the rest of the month of August, we wandered through the ghost town that Paris became.  Le congé annuel was in full force.  It seems that most people left la ville for points south and west to enjoy three or four weeks of well deserved vacation.  France has the 5th largest economy in the world.  People work very hard here.  So the time off is something they relish.  There were times when we wished we'd joined them.  The quiet our our emptied ville was nearly oppressive.

 Silent watchers over empty Parisian streets...

On a shopping expedition into the 5th, Jude found a wonderful needlepoint shop.  Their hand painted mesh and beautiful wool yarns were very attractive.  A kit might have to ordered soon.  With winter coming on it might be nice for Jude to have an activity that helps keep us indoors and out of the cold and wet.  On leaving the boutique, Jude picked up a guide to living in Paris.

The free guide is filled with interesting tidbits of information.  Including, but certainly not limited to, how to protect your apartment from being burgled.  As an outsider and not knowing the "lay of the land" here, it's easy to become paranoid about such things.  The guide opened a wide array of new opportunities to add to our paranoia.  It lead me to wondering how often thieves were successful, how they operated, and how paranoid should I be?

We noticed how a great number of apartments had their metal window protectors pulled shut.  Those apartments must have been empty.  French insurance companies require residents secure their domicile when their homes are not occupied, such as when everyone is away for the month of August working on the perfect tan.

 Chalk marks on the sidewalk...

The Paris guide included several pages that described a signal system thieves use, complete with illustrations.  Apparently, robbing unoccupied residences is a well organized activity in these parts.  The system includes chalk marks made on the sidewalk near building entries.  Symbols indicate which dwellings may have "friendly" women (why this is important, I have no idea), policemen who might live there, a building that has already been "hit", and symbols marking a residence that is ready for robbery.

Seeings as to how there was little else to do and seeings as to how we were more than a little bored, Jude and I started looking at the sidewalks in our quartier to see what might be seen.  It was fascinating.  One side of the street had chalk marks indicating the same number, like the number "5".  Another street around the corner might have "6" marked next to apartment building doors.  Where there was a business, no marks were found the entryways.

We talked over this new information and compared it against the marks indicated in the Paris guide.  They were not the same.  So we cogitated on this a bit and came to the conclusion that whoever made the chalk marks in our area either had changed the symbol system or used the symbols for some other purpose than to rob unoccupied places.

One day, two men were seen making marks all around our area.  They worked quickly and moved fast.  When they thought they were seen, they ducked into doorways or started conversations with people on the street.  It seemed like strange behavior, regardless of how we interpreted their activity.

What does these symbols mean?

A building one of the men entered had a very different chalk symbol than any of the other building entries.  What did it mean?  What were they guys up to?  Were they setting places up for robbery by indicating which buildings were most easily "hit"?  Or were they just two of the many delivery folk who put flyers and ads into resident's boite au lettre?

It was all a mystery.

What we observe is this:  Since les vacances have ended and the quartier is once again filled with life, living, and uniquely Parisian activities, the chalk marks have disappeared.

La chasse commence

Wild game?  Yum!

But what's this?  Has la chasse de septembre begun already?  La rentre hasn't even taken place yet.  Tout Paris is still away on vacances and they won't return until this coming Sunday.

We have been settling comfortably into our new apartment.  Things have been cleaned.  Things have been acquired.  Things have been slept in.  Things have been watched.  Things now reflect our sensibilities, or the foreign born lack thereof.  Things have been heard.

 Quietly avoiding la chasse...

Each place we have lived has presented us with a unique collection of sounds that sometimes take getting used to.

One of the great things about our apartment is it's proximity with nature.  Our shared courtyard is filled with trees, plants, insects, birds, and bats.  We watched as a pair of doves built a nest in a tree very close by.  Jude one morning spied a raptor of some kind as it swooped through her field of vision out the back windows. 

We were happy to see a pair of raptors on la chasse when we lived for a short time up in the 16th.  It was quite the sight to watch them work over the smaller birds.  One looked like it had captured a pigeon.

One morning, around 09h00, we heard a crack!  It was slightly muffled, but it was at the same time distinctly clear.  A few moments later we heard another crack!

We thought it strange.  So I opened an investigation into the source and nature of the crack! sounds.  I looked at the landing in front of our apartment door.  There is a small shared air duct that helps keep air circulating between les etages.  I thought perhaps we were hearing metal louvers with some small amount of force crack! shut.  Our air vent had no such louvers so it was unlikely the source of the curious sound.

The next morning, around 08h30, we heard another crack!  Then another.  And again another.

 Baby dove feeding time...

Puzzled, I went back out our front door to inspect the electrical system.  There are three power meters in a closet just outside our apartment.  The more I inspected and the more I thought about it, any arcing of the power system would likely leave the distinct smell of ozone or electronics in the process of failing.  It would be dangerous and rather unlikely.

The crack! sounds were heard from time to time.  We were no closer to an answer than the first day we heard that crack!  The investigation continued.

In the mean time, we noted that the local pigeons, which usually lined the top of a school facade two doors west of us, had quite suddenly disappeared.  On le trottoit in front of the school lay remnants of a pigeon or two.  It seems that the raptor Jude caught a glimpse of had une chasse success.

I could easily imagine the raptor sweeping into our courtyard area by squeezing unseen between tall buildings to the north.  By coming in at a great rate of kilometer par heure lower than the roofline, I could further imagine the hunter bird calculating the exact moment to pop up to roof level as it caught the pigeons completely off guard.  Lunch would be, by then, only a split second away.

Our nesting doves had suddenly become very quiet.  The mother dove would fly stealthily to a branch after being away and sit for twenty minutes.  She then moved slowly down the branch to sit and look at her young.  Slowly and very quiet.  Only then would she move onto the nest.  Her three young had been told to keep quiet.  She feeds them without a sound.

Jude was preparing breakfast recently when things became even more interesting.  Her pancakes are simply not to be missed.  All gluten and egg free.  When cooked with her new 7 inch inexpensive blue steel very French crepe surface they rival anything ever made with eggs and wheat.

It was then we heard CRACK!  Jude whipped around just in time to catch the sight of un voisin upstairs retreating from his own kitchen widow.  He'd been hunting pigeon!

Well, not exactly.  We think what he was up to was trying to scare away the pigeons that roosted in our air-well that is open to the sky.  The air-well is used to share cooking smells between the residents.  Steak frites, bad fried fish, and our very own pan-caker are commonly smelled. 

We're not sure what contraption our voisin was using to make the crack!  Maybe he was practicing for when hunting season opens?

What I feel like saying to him is come September (in a week), all bets will be off!  Get your license!!  It'll be time for la vraiment chasse!!!

Mystery solved.  Case closed.

Pigeon under glass, anyone?

La lutte entre des mots continue

We see that the French can be a people of many finely crafted words.


Climbing into the l’ascenseur recently, my wife and I were confronted with a Stern Warning regarding the use and operation of household cleaning machines after 22h00.  The Stern Warning was beautifully crafted with it's selection and order des mots.

Performing a quick mental check, I wasn't sure if the note was aimed at us, or some other building resident.  I vaguely remembered running l'aspirateur perhaps as late into the evening as 20h00 or 21h00-ish a few weeks back.

My mind then turned it's attention to the present state of French speaking abilities and I realized I am light-years away from being able to create such elegant phrases.  I can barely grunt "je vous en prie" whenever someone says "Merci" for some kindness or other that I am perceived to have performed.

Une short but entertaining lutte ensued.  Whoever posted the message was quite adamant that the Finely Crafted Message remain in the elevator taped to the glass facing the door for all the residents to read.  I had moved the warning to the side panel next to the buttons so people would be free to check their makeup and inspect how their clothing might be arranged in the mirror before venturing out into the Competitive Fashion Jungle that is Paris.  The following day as I took the recycling into the cave where les poubelles live I quickly noted that the Finely Crafted Message was squarely centered back onto the mirror where it was first placed.

Not wishing to begin another war, I let matters be taped as they were.  


I felt we'd had enough to worry over when we lived over in the 16th for a short time.  It was there that a war over who could form the more perfect letter "X" on one of two doors played out.  Those two doors happened to be our neighbor and his neighbor two doors down from us.  Close conflict.  Too close for comfort or sound sleep.  The next thing we knew, a whole war of the alphabet could break out, and who knew where that might lead next?  Whole sentences?  Gods!  What would the world have come to??

On the fourth day, la lutte contre les machine de ménage Finely Crafted Message was removed.  Peace returned to the apartment building.

Two weeks later, as we were leaving the building, we saw someone had turned the entry carpet into a litter box for kittens.  The problem was, they hadn't done a complete job of things.  Kitty litter was spilled in a rather awkward arc just in front of the inner glass door.  It was messy and we did our best not to disturb the Latest Crime Scene.  We hoped cats would have the Good Sense to clean up after themselves.  We hate the sight of Kitty Rocca.

An hour later, upon our return, what were we faced with but Stern Warning II (the Sequel).  This time it was stated in no uncertain Finely Crafted Phrases that it was incroyable!, simply incroyable!!, that someone would make a spill, only to leave it to others to clean up.  The kitty little box had returned to being our entry way carpet, clean and pristine.



The Finely Crafted Stern Warning II (the Sequel) font style was the same as l’ascenseur notice had been.  The size of the font was identical.  The elegant use of Finely Crafted Phrases was unmistakable too.

The rapidity of the appearance of the Stern Notice II (the Sequel) helped me realize that the first warning could not have been directed toward us.  I hadn't run l'aspirateur in the evening before Stern Notice I appeared, and l'aspirateur was certainly not operated after 22h00!, fercripesake!!

I wonder if we will figure out who the author is?  If we do, I'm sorely tempted to ask for French lessons.  Me-thinks a person could go a long ways in this culture using such beautifully honed phrases.